Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

Priest went to the bathroom. While he was washing his hands, he heard Melanie scream.

He ran to the office with wet hands. He found her staring at the TV. “What is it?” he said.

Her face was white, and her hand covered her mouth. “Dusty!” she said, pointing at the screen.

Priest saw Melanie’s husband being interviewed. He had their son on his knee. A moment later the picture changed, and a female anchor said: “That was Alex Day, interviewing one of the world’s leading seismologists, Professor Michael Quercus, at the FBI’s emergency operations center in the Presidio.”

“Dusty’s in San Francisco!” Melanie said hysterically.

“No, he’s not,” Priest said. “Maybe he was , when the interview was filmed. By now he’s miles away.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Of course I do. So do you. Michael’s going to take care of his kid.”

“I wish I could be sure,” Melanie said in a shaky voice.

“Make a cup of coffee,” Priest said, just to give her something to do.

“Okay.” She took the pan from the hot plate and went to fill it with water in the rest room.

Judy looked at the clock. It was six-thirty.

Her phone rang.

The room fell silent.

She snatched up the handset, dropped it, cursed, picked it up again, and held it to her ear. “Yes?”

The switchboard operator said: “Melanie Quercus asking for her husband.”

Thank God! Melanie pointed at Raja. “Trace the call.”

He was already speaking into his phone.

Judy said to the operator: “Put her on.”

All the suits from the head shed gathered around Judy’s chair. They stood silent, straining to hear.

This could be the most important phone call of my life .

There was a click on the line. Judy tried to make her voice calm and said: “Agent Maddox here.”

“Where’s Michael?”

Melanie sounded so frightened and lost that Judy felt a surge of compassion for her. She seemed no more than a foolish mother worried about her child.

Get real, Judy. This woman is a killer .

Judy hardened her heart. “Where are you , Melanie?”

“Please,” Melanie whispered. “Just tell me where he’s taken Dusty.”

“Let’s make a deal,” Judy said. “I’ll make sure Dusty’s okay — if you tell me where the seismic vibrator is.”

“Can I speak to my husband?”

“Are you with Ricky Granger? I mean Priest?”

“Yes.”

“And you have the seismic vibrator, wherever you are?”

“Yes.”

Then we’ve almost got you .

“Melanie — do you really want to kill all those people?”

“No, but we have to.…”

“You won’t be able to take care of Dusty while you’re in jail. You’ll miss watching him grow up.” Judy heard a sob at the other end of the line. “You’ll only ever see him through a glass partition. By the time they let you out, he’ll be a grown man who doesn’t know you.”

Melanie was crying.

“Tell me where you are, Melanie.”

In the big ballroom, the silence was total. No one moved.

Melanie whispered something, but Judy could not hear it.

“Speak up!”

At the other end of the line, in the background, a man shouted: “Who the fuck are you calling?”

Judy said: “Quickly, quickly! Tell me where you are!”

The man roared: “Give me that goddamn phone!”

Melanie said: “Perpetua—” Then she screamed.

A moment later the connection was broken.

Raja said: “She’s somewhere on the Bay Shore, south of the city.”

“That’s not good enough!” Judy cried.

“They can’t be more precise!”

“Shit!”

Stuart Cleever said: “Quiet, everybody. We’ll play the tape back in a moment. First, Judy, did she give you any clues?”

“She said something at the end. It sounded like “Perpetual.’ Carl, check for a street called Perpetual.”

Raja said: “We should check for a company, too. They could be in the garage of an office building.”

“Do that.”

Cleever pounded the table in frustration. “What made her hang up?”

“I think Granger found her calling and took the phone away.”

“What do you want to do now?”

“I’d like to get in the air,” Judy said. “We can fly down the shoreline. Michael can come with me and point out where fault lines run. Maybe we’ll spot the seismic vibrator.”

“Do it,” Cleever said.

Priest stared at Melanie in fury as she cowered up against the grimy washbasin. She had tried to betray him. He would have shot her right there and then if he had had a gun. But the revolver he had taken from the guard at Los Alamos was in the seismic vibrator, under the driver’s seat.

He switched off Melanie’s phone, dropped it into his shirt pocket, and tried to make himself calm. This was something Star had taught him. As a young man he had given way to his rages, knowing that they frightened others, because people were easier to deal with when they were scared. But Star had taught him to breathe right and relax and think , which was better in the long run.

Now he considered the damage Melanie had done. Had the FBI been able to trace her phone? Could they find out where a mobile was calling from? He had to assume they could. If so, they would soon be cruising the neighborhood, looking for a seismic vibrator.

He had run out of time. The seismic window opened at six-forty. He looked at his watch: it was six thirty-five. To hell with his seven o’clock deadline — he had to trigger the earthquake right now.

He ran out of the rest room. The seismic vibrator stood in the middle of the empty warehouse, facing the high entrance doors. He jumped up into the driver’s cabin and started the engine.

It took a minute or two for pressure to build up in the vibrating mechanism. He watched the gauges impatiently. Come on, come on! At last the readings went green.

The passenger door of the truck opened, and Melanie climbed in. “Don’t do it!” she yelled. “I don’t know where Dusty is!”

Priest reached out to the lever that lowered the plate of the vibrator to the ground.

Melanie knocked his hand aside. “Please, don’t!”

Priest hit her backhanded across the face. She screamed, and blood came from her lip. “Stay out of the damn way!” he yelled. He pulled the lever, and the plate descended.

Melanie reached across and threw the lever back to its start position.

Priest saw red. He hit her again.

She cried out and covered her face with her hands, but she did not flee.

Priest returned the lever to the down position.

“Please,” she said. “Don’t.”

What am I going to do with this stupid bitch? He remembered the gun. It was under his seat. He reached down and snatched it up. It was too big, a clumsy weapon in such a small space. He pointed it at Melanie. “Get out of the truck,” he said.

To his surprise she reached across him again, pressing her body against the barrel of the gun, and threw the lever.

He pulled the trigger.

The bang was deafening in the little cabin of the truck.

For a split second, a small part of his mind felt a shock of grief that he had ruined her beautiful body; but he dismissed the feeling.

She was thrown back across the cab. The door was still open, and she fell out and tumbled down, hitting the floor of the warehouse with a sickening thud.

Priest did not stop to see if she was dead.

For the third time, he pulled the lever.

Slowly the plate descended to the ground.

When it made contact, Priest started the machine.